2-time Congress MP Shandil files papers from Shimla

Two-time MP and Congress leader Dhani Ram Shandil was among eight candidates who filed nomination papers on Tuesday for the four Lok Sabha polls in Himachal Pradesh.

Shandil filed his papers from the Shimla (reserved) seat from where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded its legislator Suresh Kashyap, who will file papers on April 25.

Shandil was accompanied by senior party leaders, including Virbhadra Singh, Anand Sharma, Rajni Patil and state Congress chief Kuldeep Rathore.

"People in the country are fed up with the policies of the Modi government and they are going to vote against it," Sharma told reporters.

This was the first nomination filed by the Congress in the state. The BJP has not filed any nomination yet.

Shandil, who was a cabinet minister in the previous Virbhadra Singh-led government in the state, is a retired Indian Army official who took to politics when he joined the Himachal Vikas Congress, the outfit floated by ex-telecom minister Sukh Ram.

He won two Lok Sabha elections from Shimla, once as a Himachal Vikas Congress candidate in 1999 and later in 2004 as a Congress nominee.

The main contest in the state is between the BJP and the Congress.

In the Lok Sabha polls, Himachal Pradesh has traditionally favoured the party at the helm in the state, except for 2014, when the BJP won all the four seats.

In 2009, the BJP, which was then in power in the state, won three of the four Lok Sabha seats.

Himachal Pradesh will go to polls on May 19.

--IANS

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